CoA irked with BCCI, asks Supreme Court to solve the Shah-Srinivasan mess

What’s the story?

A disgruntled Committee of Administrators has urged the Supreme Court of India to resolve the nagging issue around Niranjan Shah and N Srinivasan and their "disruptive and subversive conduct".

According to the CoA, these members are responsible for preventing the BCCI in implementing the Lodha reforms.

"From an audio recording of the SGM, it appears that such disqualified persons were able to effectively hijack proceedings at the SGM by prevailing upon other attendees (who may have been otherwise willing to facilitate the reform process) to either support the cause of such disqualified person or remain silent," the COA said in its report to the Court.

The Details

Both Shah and Srinivasan stand disqualified under the Lodha reforms since they were above the 70-year old deadline and had served out their respective tenures for their state associations.

Despite being barred, both the aforementioned officials have found ways and means to attend important BCCI meetings, which includes the recent SGM meetings which were held on May 7 and June 26.

Apparently, these SGM meetings were convened to ratify the new Constitution, as per the Lodha Committee's recommendations.

This has irked the CoA and it has now asked the Supreme Court to resolve the issue as they are single-handedly not allowing the Lodha reforms to be adopted by the BCCI. They have thus minced no words in the reports which they have submitted to the Supreme Court.

"Such disqualified persons have a vested interest in stalling implementation of the Judgement because, if the Judgment is implemented, such disqualified person will have to relinquish control over their respective State/Member Associations", the report added.

In case you didn’t know...

Both Srinivasan and Shah attended the SGM as representatives of their respective state associations and both the TNCA and SCA said that the Lodha Committee's eligibility norms were for office bearers and not representatives.

However, the CoA made sure that they drive home the message that these officials had technically violated the diktats.

What's next?

The Supreme Court will consider all these reservations among several other recommendations during its hearing which is scheduled for July 14.

Also, they would be addressed by the CoA which is not very pleased with the BCCI for having formed a group to look into the various issues which is preventing the board from adhering to the Lodha Committee recommendations.

Author's Take

Clearly, the BCCI is taking too many liberties with both the Supreme Court and the Lodha Committee and the refusal of the old guard to step aside only drives home the point that the Indian board is reticent to any change and that they are not very keen to accept any recommendations made by the Justice Lodha committee.

The July 14 hearing promises to be a stormy affair as the Apex court will most definitely come down hard on the BCCI for its lack lustre attitude and owing to the above modus operandi the Indian board's credibility is taking a severe jolt.